Destination Duggirala!

Traveling to the place that's your name? Well, that was one memorable and thrilling moment. We were actually driving to a village called Yalamanchalli Lanka for a family-get-together. It was a good 650 kms drive from Chennai. The entire drive is a rich green one, lush with paddy farms. 

There are a bunch of villages in East Godavari District that go by the suffix of Lanka in their names, meaning island. Eg, Sanapalli Lanka, Komaraju Lanka etc. They are closely placed river-islands connected by small bridges. Water canals run all through these villages. All villages are interconnected, so we ended up going in circles using GPS. Finally, we reached by asking people on the road for directions..that helped!

A telugu by birth, I have never lived in AP although frequently do visit families etc This was the first time I actually saw these villages upfront. Knowing your roots is quite the thingJ

The resort that was arranged, Palivelu Resort was not so good, but the family bonding made up for the discomfort of the place! There’s a famous temple of the Goddess Kanyaka Parameswari enroute at Penukonda that has all the ‘nakshatras’ of my community inscribed on the pillars. My family does not subscribe to the caste-community norms and inter religion, inter-national marriages are quite usual. Yet it was interesting to see a temple with so much of significance. Lakshmi Narasimha Temple, located at Antarvedi on the banks of the river Godavari was another famous temple.

As we were driving from Chennai I saw this signboard of Chirala that sparked the idea that Duggirala must be nearby. A quick search on the internet confirmed its existence and on our return we took a detour and went to this place.

It was one thrilling moment for us. Duggirala, a small sleepy village in Guntur district that has a population of around 10,000 is known for its turmeric production.

This place comes under the Tenali Revenue Division. That brings me to mention the famous Tenali Ramakrishna from this place. He was the Vikatakavi, meaning a poet who uses wit and humour. He was a scholar and advisor to the King Krishnadevaraya and was one of the Ashtadiggajas, eight poets in his court. Supposedly Tenali Ramakrishna was instrumental in stopping the Delhi Sultanate from taking over Krishnadevaraya’s empire using his wit and strategy. We saw his statue on our way.

The anti climax of our short drive inside Duggirala that took all of 10-20 minutes was on a Sunday afternoon, everyone enjoying their siesta with all shops and establishments closed. Our excitement was so much that we stopped one lone man on the street and spoke to him asking about the place. He looked at us as if we were out of our minds, and said yeah there’s a school, a college, a bank, shops and yeah that’s it. Then we told him that our surname is the name of his village and he just did not get it! Can it get crazier than this?!

We wanted to shout from the rooftops and no one was there to hear it…sigh.

Hopefully going to my maiden surname, Darisi will be better? That’s next on the list!!